French Archaeologists Find First Website

Archaeologists digging at a site in France have discovered the earliest known web page, first written some 53 000 years ago.

Written in a primitive form of HTML 0.1 the page predates the use of CSS or DHTML and has a very rudimentary navigational structure consisting of animal bones and dirt, with no discernable back button.

A message from the past?

There is very little content on the page apart from a legal disclaimer, a very rudimentary privacy policy, and the remains of an ancient animated picture, showing the silhouette of a small caveman using a whale bone to shovel dirt, on a yellow background. The main message of the site is written in a language which has no equivalent in modern English but has been roughly translated as 'All your base are belong to us."

Early HTTP Request Process

Originally constructed on the side of a large boulder, the page was transferred from site to site by cavemen carrying a carved schematic representation of the page's content. Using the schematic, they would reproduce the page on a small browser rock, whenever requested by regional tribesmen.

Examination of skeletal remains found nearby has suggested that viewers of the page would show their veneration for the page by hitting the travelling caveman on the head with the branch of a tree. It is reasoned that the page author would then check for bruises on the head of these early HTTP messengers (HTTP is newspeak for 'Head Trauma Travelling People').

How far have we come?

Although these early 'hit counters' have been replaced by less violent means of monitoring traffic, little else has changed since.

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